Direct mandates in the federal election: won and yet lost

23 direct mandate candidates received the most votes in their respective constituencies and will nevertheless not enter the next Bundestag. This is the result of the preliminary final result of the Federal Returning Officer. The CDU is particularly affected: 15 candidates are left empty-handed. There are four candidates for the AfD, three for the CSU and one for the SPD.

The reason is the new electoral law . The main component of the electoral law reform implemented by the traffic light government in 2023 was the so-called second vote coverage. This means that only as many successful direct candidates enter the Bundestag as the party's second vote result allows. The reason for the reform was the desire for a smaller Bundestag, which is now limited to 630 seats. Overhang and compensatory mandates were thus abolished.

The CDU in Baden-Württemberg is most affected by this new regulation: 35 of the 38 constituencies went to the CDU via the first vote, but only 29 of the CDU candidates are entitled to a seat in the Bundestag. The six with the weakest results will go away empty-handed. This mainly affects urban constituencies, where the CDU achieves weaker first vote results compared to rural areas. In Baden-Württemberg, these are the constituencies of Stuttgart II, Tübingen, Lörrach-Müllheim, Rhein-Neckar, Heidelberg and Mannheim.

The Union in particular criticised the new electoral law in the run-up to the election. In its election manifesto it announced that it would change it again. CDU leader Friedrich Merz again clearly criticised the new electoral law at a press conference on Monday: "If 23 constituencies elect constituency representatives who subsequently do not get into the German Bundestag, then that is damaging our democracy and it cannot continue like this."

The CSU in Bavaria is also affected: three CSU politicians cannot move to Berlin due to a lack of second vote coverage. There, the urban CSU constituencies of Nuremberg-North, Augsburg-City and Munich-South are left empty-handed.

In the Bremen I constituency, SPD MP Ulrike Hiller emerged as the winner with 25.2 percent of the first votes. But she will not receive a direct mandate either. The AfD is affected in four cases.

Four constituencies are "orphaned"; they have no representation at all, not even by members of the Bundestag who enter the Bundestag via the state lists. These are Darmstadt in Hesse, Lörrach-Müllheim, Tübingen and Stuttgart II in Baden-Württemberg.

Political scientist Robert Vehrkamp, ​​who was involved in the electoral reform as an expert, recently criticized in the taz newspaper that myths had spread around the new electoral law. The claim that constituency winners do not get their mandate is false.

The definition of who is considered the "constituency winner" is now different. "I like to compare the new second vote coverage with the offside rule in football: a goal only counts if the goalscorer was not offside. The relative majority of votes in the constituency alone is no longer enough. In order to be declared the constituency winner, second vote coverage is also required," said Vehrkamp. Citizens will have to get used to the new definition first, as the old electoral law is still in place.